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Hekaya (حكاية)

Screenplay markup for Egyptian and Arabic-speaking screenwriters

Write screenplays in plain text

Use any text editor. No proprietary software needed. Hekaya syntax is designed to feel natural for writing in Egyptian Arabic.

Character names use @ for first introduction, then auto-detect. Scene headings use Arabic keywords like داخلي and خارجي.

See full sample screenplay →
العنوان: آخر أيام الصيف
المؤلف: سمير عبدالحميد

داخلي - قهوة بلدي - نهار

سمير قاعد لوحده في ركن القهوة،
بيبص على فنجان القهوة اللي قدامه.

@سمير
(لنفسه)
كل يوم نفس المنظر.. نفس الناس.. نفس القهوة.

@حسن
(بفرحة)
يا سمير! أنا قاعد أدور عليك من الصبح!

@سمير
(من غير ما يبص)
وأنا قاعد أستنى حد يدور عليا.

RTL Native

Built from the ground up for right-to-left text. Arabic scene headings, character names, transitions, and bidirectional text handling.

Fountain Compatible

Extends the Fountain specification. Existing .fountain files parse correctly — add Arabic features incrementally.

PDF Export

Generate professionally formatted screenplay PDFs with proper Arabic fonts, RTL layout, and industry-standard margins.

Zero Dependencies

The core parser has no dependencies. Lightweight, fast, and easy to embed in any JavaScript or TypeScript project.

Character Registry

Introduce characters with @ once, then the parser auto-detects them. No need for UPPERCASE — Arabic has no case.

CLI Tool

Parse, render, export, validate, and convert screenplays from the command line. Supports JSON, HTML, and PDF output.

Packages

@hekaya/parser

Core markup parser (zero dependencies)

@hekaya/renderer

HTML renderer with RTL-aware screenplay CSS

@hekaya/pdf

PDF generator with Arabic font support

@hekaya/cli

Command-line tool